Together in our own right
by jotepidwater
Summary: One trip is all it takes for our two leaders to discover that they need each other more than they previously thought.
1. Chapter 1

**I don't own any of these characters. Feel free to review if you have the time x**

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"I don't want to go on a hunt Bellamy," whined Clarke for what seems like the thousandth time, but in reality was probably closer to the seventh, "I don't _like_ hunting."

"And how do you know that, Princess?" drawled Bellamy. "Have you ever _been_ hunting?"

For that, the dark haired rascal was rewarded with a scowl to which he replied by throwing her a bow.

"You gotta learn sometime Clarke. Everyone does. We need to eat."

"I don't want to kill anything!"

"You won't kill it, but you don't mind eating it? It's about survival. If we don't hunt, everyone will die." He knew that would get to her. Though their relationship hadn't gotten off to the best start, the months that had passed had bought with them a sense of camaraderie between the two, and with that had produced a somewhat unlikely friendship. He knew her. Knew that she would do anything to keep her people alive. Knew that she would never let a situation like that of Wells and Charlotte arise again. Knew that she wouldn't let her people starve.

"Fine. Fine!" She set off for the forest without a backward glance.

"Uh, Princess?" Bellamy called, hardly being able to hide his glee at the thought of continually besting her as the day went on.

"What?" she snapped back. "Oh."

Bellamy was holding up a sheath of arrows, along with a pack full of supplies. "I know you're new to this Clarke, but were you expecting to have to bludgeon the creatures to death? We're teaching you how to shoot."

Clarke stomped back to towards her mentor for the day, grabbed what he was holding out to her blindly and then whirled around and crashed back through the trees. _He can't make me shoot anything if there is nothing around to kill,_ she thought to herself with a satisfied smile, as she attempted to be as loud as she could.

Bellamy stalked her as she walked, following closely enough that he would be able to help if he saw any traps, but other than that giving her space. He knew what she was trying to do. He let her have her fun. Anyway, it was cute to see her so riled up. He smiled at her retreating form and jogged silently to catch up.

He let her walk for about an hour or so (he thought anyway, he didn't have a watch and hadn't yet gotten used to reading the sun) and decided that they should break to rest. There was still half the day left and he wasn't in a hurry to get back to camp.

"Clarke, we can stop here!" he called. She didn't turn, or give any other kind of indication that she had heard him. "Clarke! You-hoo! Princess!" At this she halted and spun around to face him, narrowing her eyes when she saw that he was sitting on the leafy floor of the forest, a good distance away.

"It's funny how you say that you don't like being called Princess, but then only reply to me when I call you that," Bellamy teases.

"Well, I didn't even know if you knew my real name," Clarke says coldly. Bellamy sat up and blinked at her and she smiled at him. "Kidding," she said raising her eyebrows, and dumped her stuff next to him.

When Bellamy leaned over to hand her the water container he touched her knee.

"I like Clarke. Th-the name Clarke. I like your name." _God,_ he thought, _that's probably the most awkward thing I've ever said._

"Thanks. I like it too," she paused to collect her thoughts, wondering how to formulate what she was about to say. "My dad picked it." She drew in a deep breath. She didn't talk about her father. Not to anyone. Even that short sentence about him caused a spasm of pain in her chest. It settled there, and she knew that she wouldn't be able to shake it.

When she looked up at Bellamy she was trying to blink her tears away. He didn't say anything, which was good for her, she thought. If he had started spouting platitudes about how it was okay to cry then he wouldn't have been the Bellamy she knew. Hell, she didn't even think he would be a Blake. She couldn't imagine Octavia doing that either. He just shifted a little closer and allowed the very tips of their fingers to touch, a small gesture of human contact which made her feel as though the cavern in her chest wasn't quite so empty today. It made her smile. And it made her strong enough to stand up when he did to continue on their way.

* * *

They had been walking for _miles._

"Bellamy Blake you tell me where we are going right now or I'm heading back to camp," Clarke said suddenly, pulling her companion out of his daydream.

"I mean it," she warned, stubbornly coming to a halt.

She watched as Bellamy's eyes lost the haze from whatever he had been thinking about and tapped her foot expectantly.

Bellamy fought the urge to shake the thoughts out of his head. They had been walking for a long time, and he was exhausted. It could be the only reason that he was unable to get his mind out of the gutter. Walking behind Clarke, seeing her shapely form sway to and fro while she was walking had done something funny to his stomach. It made him go all tingly. It meant that he had been unable to take his eyes off her backside. _What the hell is this?_ Bellamy thought. _I don't have romantic feelings for Clarke. I don't have the time or the_ patience _to have feelings for Clarke. I guess it's just because she's hot._ He stayed with his thoughts for a while until the object of them cut across his thinking time.

"Much as I adore standing in the forest this close to dark Bellamy, I was hoping that we actually had somewhere to go?" Clarke loved being sarcastic. She loved seeing his mind work as he tried to come up with a retort to match hers. She was surprised when he didn't.

"It's right through the next clearing," Bell announced. He wasn't sure why he had made her come all this way. He knew she would like the place that he was showing her, but it had been his place. His safe space. Maybe he figured she needed one too.

"Blake. Why did we come this far out?" She was getting antsy being so far away from the rest of her people. "I know I need to learn to shoot but could we not have practiced that near the camp?"

Bellamy turned to her. "I thought it would be best if we took you as far away from other people as possible. Couldn't have you maiming someone by accident, _Griffin,_ " he smirked as a mimicked her.

She gritted her teeth and continued forward, hearing the rushing of a stream and the gentle hum of hundreds of insects.

"Clarke, before we get to where we are going, I need to tell you, this-this... trip... isn't just about hunting. This place is special. I'm sharing it with you because I know you will appreciate it for what it is. And I thought you might need a place to relax too," he said gravely. He must have realised how serious he was sounding, for he waited a moment and then gave an impish grin, pulling her forward into a veritable haven.


	2. Chapter 2

**I don't own any of these characters. Thanks to anyone who reviewed the last chapter.**

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Clarke was thankful that Bellamy was standing behind her, giving her a chance to let her surroundings sink in. It was _beautiful._ She didn't know if it was because it was dusk, or because the place just seemed to be so magical but she swore that it _glowed._

They were under a canopy of trees in a clearing that was a perfect circle. It wasn't large but it had everything she could want. If she squinted in the pale light she could just about make out a brook to her left, and in front of her an indentation in a cliff side revealed a snug but cosy cave with a curtain of vines covering the entrance.

She turned to look at Bellamy, to thank him for bringing her to this enchanting patch of the forest, but started when she found he was much closer than expected. It must have been the magnificence of her surroundings but when she saw him standing so close to her, she took the time to study the man who had come to mean home. He looked almost ethereal, the light making his skin appear paler and his hair darker, as though all the colour had been sucked from him. She supposed she must look the same.

"Is this were you come?" she whispered, loath to break the silence in such an amazing place.

Bellamy just nodded at her, giving her a closed lipped smile, one that she had come to know, and always treasured when she was gifted with one. Genuine joy was hard to find on the ground, and Clarke remembered every smile of all of her friends at the camp. She just liked Bellamy's more, it was so **rare** to see him with a happy expression. The weight of 100 unruly children had settled upon his shoulders and not budged since the day they had arrived.

"Is this were you came after Charlotte?" the words escaped her mouth with no direction from her head. She waited to see Bellamy's reaction, not knowing if she should feel regretful for reminding him of the horrific incident. When they were unable to find Charlotte's body the small party had made their way back towards the drop ship, until Bellamy veered off before they were home. He refused company, telling them that he would see them in the morning. He took no supplies and it was three days before Clarke saw him back at the camp, striding around talking of the threat that the grounders posed. Acting like nothing had happened. Clarke remembered being thrilled and relieved to see his face, haunted though it was, but also shattered that he hadn't approached her.

Bellamy ignored Clarke's question. He'd already answered it the first time.

"It's dark Clarke. We should get some rest, tomorrow we can practice shooting. It's too dangerous tonight." He walked straight towards the cave, hunching just slightly as he went through the entrance. She was able to walk through it standing tall, though she could feel the rough ceiling teasing her hair occasionally.

As she approached the dim fire that Bellamy was feeding a sudden roar of the wind scared her, making her jump and smash her head against the roof. The impact shook her knees and she fell onto all fours, groaning.

She felt Bellamy drop to his knees beside her and glanced up at him, smiling ruefully, expecting an answering smirk and some smart Alec comment about it only being the weather, but they never came. It was just a bump on the head, she had had much worse and knew that it probably wasn't serious but the lack of composure on Bellamy's face, the concern in his eyes made her own start to water. She hadn't realised how much it hurt until she saw how worried her partner looked.

"Oh Clarke," he muttered, "It's okay." He used the tips of his fingers to locate the spot that she had whacked, and put a little pressure on it, causing her to hiss with pain. "Sorry," he said "I just needed to see if you were bleeding. You're fine. You're going to be okay."

The slight smile that he gave her, along with the crackles of electricity running down her spine from the top of her head where his fingers still rested had her pulling away from him, putting her guard back up, keeping her distance.

"Sure thing, Doctor Blake," she deadpanned. "It was more the shock of it than anything else. I've had worse." She lifted one of her shoulders in a half shrug motion, but dropped it and winced when she found that moving did her very little in the way of pain relief.

"Here. Sit down. All we have to do tonight is eat and sleep." He turned to her, unease in his eyes, "So long as you aren't concussed."

"It really was just a bump," Clarke smiled through the pain. She didn't want to be babied. None of them could afford an injured leader.

* * *

At some point during the night Clarke awoke, freezing. The fire had died out and with the wind had come the rain, chilling her bones. She made a move to get up and restart the fire, but realised that she would need more kindling. The rain however made that impossible, everything was too damp to be able to get a fire going. She supposed she could venture out to look for some dry fire-wood, but that would just result in her getting soaked.

Sitting back down she scooted closer to the embers of the fire, hoping that they would still be giving off some heat. She glanced over at Bellamy and smiled. He was lucky. He'd told her that when he slept he was dead to the world, no dreams, no worries. God, she was envious of that. Looking down at him again she could see that that was true. He slept like a child, arms and legs akimbo, hair over his eyes with his mouth just slightly open. And he was shivering. Clarke frowned.

"Bellamy," she whispered, standing once more and nudging him with her foot. "Bellamy, wake up."

No luck. Bellamy just grunted and rolled over, capturing her foot in his arms as he did so. Clarke, normally as dexterous as the next person, must still have been feeling dozy from her head injury because as she felt her right foot slide forward with Bellamy her left stayed planted firmly on the floor. This caused her to do a somewhat inelegant flip directly onto Bellamy's head and torso.

A muffled "GA-AH-ACK!" came from beneath Clarke as she groaned. Somehow she had managed to smack her temple against his elbow. Any more of this and her brain would become detached and fall out of her ears.

"Bellamy!" Clarke hissed. "I'm so sorry!"

"What the hell Clarke?!" Bellamy rolled her off his body and sat up, clutching his midsection, "Was there not an easier way to wake me up?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Clarke lamented. She decided it would be better to just shut up.

"What were you trying to do Clarke?" Bellamy's voice still hadn't quite evened out and she winced.

"I'm sorry Bellamy, it was an accident. I got up because it was cold, and then I saw you shivering and I tried to wake you up and…" she remembered the way that he had cradled her foot before bringing her crashing to the ground. "And…" She couldn't help but grin. Big bad Bellamy needed something to cuddle at night.

"And?" Bellamy demanded, losing his patience. He was not good at waking up.

"…and I tripped on something and fell on you." Clarke decided that she would keep to herself the real truth. Guys got so uncomfortable when you called them cute.

"You feeling okay?" Bellamy asked, his annoyance fading. Clarke had a funny look on her face and was hugging herself.

Bellamy narrowed his eyes.

"You were right," he said, interrupting her thoughts.

"Huh?"

"It IS cold," his teeth were chattering. "C'mere." He motioned for her to sit next to him on the patch of tarpaulin that he had produced from his backpack that night.

She sat, and felt his arm curl around her shoulders. The two stayed like that, sharing body heat and watching the light gradually brighten outside until the grey dawn broke to reveal the weak, watery sunshine peaking through.

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 **Please review if you have the time x**


	3. Chapter 3

**Thanks to anyone who left a review, I really appreciate it x**

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Clarke's body rocked when she felt Bellamy shift next to her, standing and stretching himself out. He ventured outside into the morning, allowing himself a moment to bask in the weak sunshine. After last night, the gentle warmth was bliss on his skin and he tilted his face upwards to enjoy it in solitude.

The hushed sound of leaves bought him out of his trance, and he turned to find Clarke pulling her fingers through her knotted hair.

"I miss my comb," she complained, looking wistfully towards the direction that she thought camp to be in.

"Why didn't you bring it?" Bell was curious, but he honestly could not see the difference between her hair when it had been brushed. It was so wavy that it was always kind of messy.

"I didn't know that we would be gone for more than a day!" Clarke's mood was rapidly deteriorating due to lack of sleep and food. A sudden rumble in her stomach announced itself and she looked at Bellamy hopefully.

"Sorry Princess, I have nothing for you. If you want to eat then we have to hunt."

Clarke huffed, blowing the hair out of her eyes.

"How about you go catch us some breakfast, and then teach me to hunt afterwards? I don't know how good at aiming I will be on an empty stomach..." Clarke let her voice drop low and husky while she pleaded, and managed to just stop herself fluttering her eyelashes.

Bellamy cleared his throat. "If you weren't so obvious then I wouldn't even recognise you," he deadpanned, rolling his eyes at her to indicated that he knew exactly what her ploy was. "I'll go. But you have to skin and cook whatever I catch, like the good housewife you are just desperate to be."

Bellamy swiveled on his heel and marched out of the clearing as quickly as he dared, before Clarke was able to find something to throw at his retreating form.

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After Bellamy's rather swift departure Clarke didn't really know what to do with herself. She felt lost on her own, realising that it was the first time that she had been really and truly by herself since her time in the Skybox. It was strangely unsettling, yet equally underwhelming.

An idea struck her and she went in search of the stream that she had heard last night. Upon finding it she frowned, it was bigger than she expected it to be, and moving fast due to the rain last night. Giving up on her idea of a bath, she pulled off her boots and stuck her feet in instead, wiggling her toes and watching the water run in between her digits.

As she slowly swung her legs back and forth, a movement in the water to her right had her drawing her body out of the water and shuffling back a few inches. She didn't want to risk baiting a water snake thing like the one that had attacked Octavia.

Leaning over the edge of the bank she peered into the water as closely as she dared an exclaimed aloud when she saw hundreds of fish slithering over each other all the way up and down the stream.

" _Brilliant,_ " she whispered, before squealing to herself and hugging her arms to her body, unable to contain her excitement.

She rolled onto her knees and stood, scanning her surroundings looking for a decent sized stick. She thought that string would be an issue, and made a move to search through Bellamy's pack to see if he had bought anything of use, until she remembered the drawstring on the tracksuit bottoms that she was wearing. Figuring that Bellamy would be gone for a while, and that she would be sitting down anyway, she undid the knot holding them up and pulled the string from the waistband.

Tying the drawstring to her stick she examined the crude but hopefully effective fishing rod that she had found and shuffled back to the water's edge.

She inspected the stream once again, and dipped the end of the string into the patch with the most fish, waiting hopefully. It became apparent however after a little while that this method was going to do nothing in the way of catching any fish.

 _How to do it how to do it how to do it,_ she repeated in her mind as she looked around the clearing, hoping for some kind of inspiration. _What would Bellamy do?_ her mind whispered.

"He'd get creative," she declared to herself. "Ugh. That probably means getting dirty," she said as she glanced down into the mud. The rain had of course bought all the worms up, and though she had no problem with all of the gore that human anatomy bought, she did not particularly relish the idea of sticking her hand into the mud.

"Fuck it," she announced. She was going to show Bellamy that she wasn't useless, that she _could_ provide for them, that she was just as good at looking after everyone as he was.

Without thinking again, she stuck her hand straight into a wiggling mess of worms, attempting to shake off the squeamishness that had her squealing.

"Ew ew ew ewewewewewww," she whined. She stopped and looked at the creature, slowly pushing its way along her palm. _Crap._ She had no way to attach it to the fishing pole. She couldn't just tie it on, the fish would never go for it.

She sighed and went to put the worm down again until she felt the slight pressure of the bobby pin in her hair. It was her last chance to try to impress that shaggy haired tosser who she had come to call family. (The earth did funny things to people).

* * *

A little while later Bellamy approached their temporary camp with caution. He had several rabbits tied to his belt but was wary of the silence surrounding the clearing. Clarke was rarely this quiet. He would have expected her to be singing, or humming, or at least muttering about him leaving her for such a long time. But it was deadly quiet.

He rushed into the glade and as such was surprised when Clarke spun around to shush him from her position on a flat rock next to the river behind the cave. Surrounding her were half a dozen headless fish, and she even seemed to be in the process of gutting them, an act Clarke usually left to the hunters. Honestly, for a medic, she was strangely unstable around blood that wasn't human.

"Well. Princess. I am impressed. You did good." Bellamy smirked at her. As proud as he was that she had successfully found them a source of sustainable food, he saw this as another way of getting out of hunting for her. He wasn't going to say anything though. Maybe gutting fish was enough for now.

"I only caught as many as I thought we would need for today," she explained, looking up at him almost sheepishly. "I didn't know how long they would last."

Bellamy lets out a huff of air in order to hide his smile. That's Clarke. Always forward thinking, logical, what's best for everyone and everything. It was always the thing that he admired about her, even when they first landed and he hated everything about her. Now he adores it. And her come to think about it.

He frowns internally. He _does_ adore Clarke. She's family. So are all the others. But Clarke is family in a different way. He has a responsibility for the others. But with Clarke... it's just a little bit different. He realised that he had been standing motionless for a while, staring at the mole on her upper lip for no reason other than he hadn't really noticed it before and it was quintessentially her. He glanced up at the sky and made his way towards the cave, decided to tuck away his thoughts on Clarke for another time. It wasn't that he thought he was in love with her. Hell, she was attractive enough, but he wasn't in love with her. He thought that he might be in like with her. But there was no time for that on this trip. _Something to think about though_ he thought, _there's definitely something there..._

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 ** _Please review if you have the time x_**


	4. Chapter 4

**Wow, it's been almost four months I suck at this updating lark! Anyway, this hasn't been beta'd so if there are mistakes I'm really sorry, but do feel free to tell me about them, and if you don't want to tell me about mistakes, tell me about something else :) thanks to everyone who reviews xx**

The rest of the day is spent in relative silence between the two leaders. It's not unheard of for them to spend short amounts of time with one another not speaking, but these occasions are few and far between, and so at the end of the day, Clarke feels herself getting antsy. She gets that not talking is a necessity when hunting, and concedes that they've actually done pretty well. But not talking about the 100? It's agony to be alone with her thoughts, her worries, especially when she is so close to the person that she normally shares the burden with without being able to tell him of her fears. The two of them have never been gone for so long, and while she trusts Miller's stalwart commitment to keeping the camp safe, she can't help but become more and more fidgety as the day lengthens, with no sign of their returning to camp.

It's when she finally snags a deer without looking at the creature that she demands to be taken home.

"Bellamy, this is great, but quite obviously I don't need this training." Bellamy scoffs and mutters something under his breath, but she has a feeling that it wasn't complimentary, and rather than argue (which she thinks is probably what he wants anyway, he reverts back to _whatever the hell we want_ pretty quickly when he doesn't get his way) she lets it slide.

"Look, I just took down an adult deer at fifty paces. I'm not leaving it, and it's easily going to take us the rest of the day to get it back to camp on our own. So let's _move it,_ " she huffs as she steps forward, bracing herself to slide down the slight dip on the forest floor and through the thickets of weeds that don't hesitate to cling to her legs, trying to trip her.

It takes a few moments, but soon enough she can hear Bellamy sliding down after her, mumbling something about " _these damn triffids."_ She has no idea what a triffid is and calls back to ask, keeping her eyes trained on the trees surrounding the animal lest any larger prey is lurking.

"Nothing," Bellamy breathes into her ear, making Clarke jump a foot into the air, having not realised that he had gotten so close so quickly.

"Ju-ju-just something…. from a book that I read once," Bellamy forces out, pressing his hand against his mouth in an attempt to stem his laughter.

She scowls and shoves him, treading slowly out towards her kill. It was a clean shot, the arrow lodged deep into her throat. It had snapped, and the blood of the animal had spilled over the clean, soft fur at the neck, but given a chance and the kids on duty at the wash station would be able to get it out. At least it would mean another warm pelt for someone, come winter.

Bellamy joins her in hunching over the once majestic creature, catching up Clarke's hair in his hands and holding it out of the way. She turns to him in confusion and he holds up the ends of her locks to show her the red tips, while looking surprised at himself.

"Uh," he clears his throat, "didn't think you'd want this kind of hair dye," is the feeble joke that he manages to get out. He motions to her that he doesn't now know what to do with her hair, and she sighs her thanks, wrapping it around her hand to tuck it down her jacket. It's itchy as hell but he's right, she knows that she won't be leaving camp for a while once they return, and wouldn't get the chance to wash it out.

Bellamy quickly stands, putting some distance between him and the last curly strand of her hair that has fallen over her shoulder. He thoroughly inspects the arrow once she has pulled it out of the deer's body, and discards it with a sigh, knowing that he'd have to put someone up to the job of creating more, ( _not_ the most coveted job in the camp).

She winces at him in apology, but he just shakes his head and motions for her to help haul the beast almost entirely onto his shoulders.

"Come on you," he says, looking towards the sky as the sun begins to touch the tops of the trees, "we've probably not got long until sundown. We're not too far away though, believe it or not, I wanted to get back just as much as you."

They walk and she is relieved that the stretching silence has dissipated. Every so often he stops to readjust the carcass on his back, and refuses her offers to carry it (just for a little while to give him a break, even her ego admits that she could never have the strength that Bellamy does).

The journey is an odd one, their conversations going far deeper than anything that either of them had experienced before with one another. When they weren't discussing the camp (see _fighting about_ ) their exchanges tended towards a light bantering between the two, teasing and easy, not anything to think about. But their slow progress back to the dropship is the setting for talk of memories and hopes, of parents and siblings (that's rather one sided of course, but Clarke can't help but express a jealousy over his relationship with Octavia).

Bellamy reacts to this with a soft smile at first, but it slowly becomes ever more clouded as she talks of the ease of the relationship that he has with her, and her envy over not having a companion like that during her time on the Ark.

" _Stop it,_ " he snaps at her, after a few minutes of her words. They cut deep into him, about all the times he wished that he didn't have to deal with the burden of a sister living under the floor, and all the times he watched her with fear in her eyes, having to pretend that she didn't exist. It makes him feel guilty, but it also angers him, Clarke makes it sound so easy, but it never was. Not for a single one of them.

To Bellamy's credit though, he tells Clarke precisely this, his tone short and his words harsh, though every one of them the truth. She looks shocked and he almost regrets it. But she brushes her hand down his arm and it stops him just long enough to look into her eyes. There is no pity there, but a hint of understanding, and he knows it is because of the secret that she carried for such a short time, and the duties that she faces now. It is comfort, and it allows him to smile in apology and walk on.

They arrive home just after dark, and Clarke startles herself with the use of the word. _Home._ It's a foreign concept to her, but she supposes it fits here as well as anywhere.

And home? Well, home is chaos.

She follows Bellamy to the smoke-house, where he deposits their bounty, and turns with him to the crowd that has gathered around them, loudly proclaiming their woes to their leaders. It's not quite all of the camp, but it's most of them, with Miller at the very centre tightly embracing them both.

"Never leave again," he pleads passionately, "please never put me in this position again. God, I'm so glad you're back. It's been a living _hell._ " With this he casts a look over the band of miscreants, and they slowly fall silent under his gaze.

Bellamy chuckles to himself _must have had some success then,_ he thinks, before the physical weight that he has been carrying on his shoulders for the better part of three hours returns, it's Octavia, giving him a bear hug.

Raven jogs towards them, closely followed by Monty and the two start talking at the same time, making wild arm gestures and tripping over their words.

"Okay, okay!" Bellamy finally shouts, holding up a hand to halt the streams of words coming from multiple mouths. "Has anyone been injured, seriously or otherwise?" he asks. He is greeted with several shaking heads. "Have there been any threats to the camp?" once again, the delinquents mutely shake their heads. "So what the hell is the problem then?" he demands, and immediately regrets it, as a cacophony of voices assault their ears.

"QUIET!" he bellows, and they all shut up. He turns to Clarke and sees the mirth in her eyes, her body shaking from constricting her laughter.

"Clarke and I will be in the dropship. Miller, Raven, Monty – you're with us." Complaint and objections begin to fill the air.

"EVERYONE ELSE will wait in an orderly line outside the ship and we will get to you. If I don't deem your problem as important, then you will be on latrine duty for the foreseeable future." There is some grumbling but immediately almost half the crowd disperses back to their chores, while the others quietly line up outside the make-shift clinic to wait for their leaders to see them.

He sighs and turns to Clarke, and while she is no longer laughing at him, he can still see mirth lines around her lips, and he flicks her nose as he begins to steer her towards the dropship in the wake of the others.

"Come on Princess, we've got a lot of work to do, and we can't have any distractions," Bellamy states, clamping his hands onto her shoulders and walking her up the ramp into the metal box. Just as she turns her head to answer him Spacewalker's annoying whine rings out across the camp.

"Clarke! Clarke!"

Bellamy sighs. _Perfect._

Just as the thudding of his feet reach the slope of the dropship, Bellamy releases Clarke and gives her a little push to signal that she should go in ahead of him, and turns to deal with Collins.

"So sorry Finn," Bellamy drawls sweetly, "but we're so super busy right now, lots to do, people to see, if you want to talk to us then there's a line. Bye now." With that, he turns and stalks into the ship, allowing no time for another word out of the younger boy's mouth.

He smiles smugly when he thinks no one is looking, but as he looks over to his small group of ragtag leaders he notices Clarke give him a soft smile and mouth _thank you,_ nodding towards the entrance as she does so. He shrugs in return, but feels his cheeks go a little pink, pleased that she noticed.

Clarke and Bellamy spend the rest of the evening debriefing Miller (that's what Bellamy calls it and she thinks it is just _hilarious_ ) and listening to the petty squabbles and rows of almost forty of their kids, culminating rather spectacularly with Clarke pulling rank when two of the four boys she is dealing with ignore what she is saying, putting them on laundry duty for the next fourteen days.

It's nearing midnight, Octavia tells them, when everyone has been dealt with, meaning that most of the camp are abed, only those on watch generally being up and about at this hour. She gives them both a brief hug and heads out of the ship, leaving Bellamy and Clarke exhausted and almost dead on their feet, leaning on one another while they make their way out towards their respective tents.

Just as he turns to her to bid her a goodnight, she's ambushed by bloody Spacewalker again, and no matter how many times she tells him that she needs to sleep, he pleads to her over and over, until Bellamy just has to step in again.

"Clarke, we should go look over those maps for tomorrow if you want to send out that scouting party for those herbs that you need," he says, and not waiting for her to catch up to what he is saying, leads her away from Finn and into his tent. She's almost asleep on his shoulder by the time they enter, and he turns his body so she is able to collapse onto the bed, full clothed.

He shakes his head at her crumpled form, her arms above her head and her face turned to the left to stop her from suffocating while she lays on her belly. He tries to shake her awake but she doesn't stir more than to smack at his hand, so he kneels down and tugs her boots off. If she's going to sleep in his bed then she's sure as hell not going to dirty it up by wearing shoes.

He throws off his jacket, and toes off his boots and socks. He toys with the idea of leaving the rest of his clothes on but fuck it. _It's my bed_ he thinks, _I'm going to be comfortable. It's not my fault that she collapsed here,_ and as such shucks off his shirt and trousers and crawls underneath the covers, nudging Clarke over with his hip so that he has enough room to be comfortable. She rolls onto her back away from him and without thinking he follows her warmth.

They don't cuddle, but for Bellamy, sharing his bed with Clarke makes him sleep deeper than he has done since he was five.

 **Again, sorry for taking so long, and I hope you guys like it. Much love x**


	5. Chapter 5

**Once I get back into writing I just can't help but do it all the time, so you're getting another update now. It doesn't hurt to review either... :D**

Clarke awakes, sticky and sweating, but surprisingly well rested in her tent, and takes a moment to roll her joints and crack her knuckles before she opens her eyes to the sunlight that the flimsy material of their tents doesn't prevent from streaming in. Just as she begins to stretch her arms to the side like a starfish in her morning wake-up ritual, her hand hits an obstacle that isn't normally there. An obstacle that grunts sleepily and tells her to _go back to sleep princess._ Clarke promptly squeals and falls off the makeshift bed onto the floor in between the little gap between the tent wall and the cot.

It takes her a while to extract herself, and by this point she no longer believes that she is in her own tent. Yeah, it took a while, but come on, she's never said that she's a morning person. Walking around the small enclosure she spies Bellamy on the bed, frowning with his eyes shut, and she's unsure whether or not he is asleep.

" _Bellamy,_ " she whispers at him, which doesn't elicit a response and she almost laughs with relief. If he'd seen her fall off his bed… Well, safe to say, she probably wouldn't be forgetting about it within the next fifty years or so.

She doesn't remember falling asleep here last night, but she can't think of a reason that she would have been pulled from her tent in her sleep and deposited here. She chalks it up to the exhaustion of the previous two days.

Clarke shuffles around the tent as quietly as she can manage, searching for her boots and a jacket. She finds her footwear, but no coat, and figures that she must have left it at the dropship after last night's efforts with the rest of the camp. Just as she is leaving she looks back into the tent and sees a discarded jumper hanging off the edge of the desk, and, looking down on the goose bumps running across her arms, shrugs and retrieves it, slipping it on over her head and smirking when she saw that it reached down way past her waist to mid-thigh level, and that she had to roll the sleeves up four times to ensure that she would be able to use her hands.

Stepping out into the brisk morning light was easily one of the perks of Clarke's day. The tents tended to become stuffy during the night, so it was always pleasant to leave, making the act of actually getting out of bed far easier.

She made her way across the camp from Bellamy's tent towards the dropship, smiling and stopping to talk to the few kids that were up at this early hour. She passed Jasper and Monty faffing about almost directly outside the tent, and almost tripped over them as she left. Rather than greeting her with their usual happy chattering, they stared up at her with something akin to shock and bemusement on their young faces. Clarke slowed, but when neither boy made to say anything she shrugged and walked on, ignoring similar looks from various delinquents as she strode to the dropship, and her improvised hospital (there had been some scrapes from yesterday that she hadn't quite gotten around to taking care of yet).

Rather than dwell on the odd way in which the kids were treating her she threw herself into working, sorting out injuries, setting a broken nose ( _I fell out of a tree, why were you up a tree, I was following Jamie_ ) and taking inventory of the herbs and plants that needed to be gathered during the next hunting trip. It wasn't until later when Raven came to find her with lunch that Clarke realised why she had been on the receiving end of so many inquisitive looks.

"You get some last night then?" questioned Raven as she bought in a small bowl of berries and a chunk of the deer from yesterday, throwing herself into a chair next to the 'operating' table.

"Get shome whatsch?" asked Clarke around a mouthful of food. She hasn't eaten since lunch yesterday, and manners don't go so far on the ground.

"Nice," remarks Raven, "I thought you Alpha Station girls were taught to eat with your mouths closed?" Clarke deliberately spits a purple berry at her, choking on her laughter when her friend doesn't manage to duck in time. The fruit lands on her chest, just above her tank top, and when she wipes it away it smears over her chest.

"War paint," Raven finally decides, giving up on trying to get the stain off of her skin with her hands. "Anyway, you never answered my question."

Clarke looks at her blankly, still shovelling food into her mouth as fast as she possibly can.

"Did you have sex last night?" Raven demands impatiently. Luckily, this time when Clarke spits out her food she's not in the splash zone and instead the mouthful _splats_ onto the floor. Raven looks at up Clarke with an eyebrow raised, exaggerated disappointment on her face.

"Why do you think I had sex? Does everyone think that? Who said that?" Clarke stutters these questions out in rapid succession.

"Honey, YOU basically said it. You came sauntering out of Bellamy's tent this morning, and did the walk of shame in _his_ jumper," Raven plucks at the fabric she is wearing. "What's more, he hasn't been near you all day, when you're usually stuck at the hip. Everyone just assumed."

"Assumed. Right. Assumed," repeats Clarke vaguely, toying with a piece of cloth that would double up as a bandage when it was needed.

Raven just rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet, sometimes looking at Clarke, sometimes looking over her shoulder out of the dropship door and onto the makeshift courtyard that compromised roughly half of the camp.

Minutes pass and Clarke finally realises that Raven is still lingering, and waves her away good naturedly, thinking over her dilemma. She snorts. _Dilemma._ They've been on the ground for maybe three months? She's buried five kids, including her best friend, banished Murphy, seen a 12-year-old throw herself off a cliff and bought Jasper back from the brink of death. Gossip is nothing, it scarcely bothered her when she was on the Ark, why was it bothering her now?

 _Because it's Bellamy,_ a voice prompted from the very back of her mind. Cursing herself for being a coward, she ignores it, not wanting to confirm some suspicions that have been floating around her head for some time now. Having feelings for Bellamy would get in the way of everything that they had built up, it would shatter the very foundation of their co-leadership. No, there was nothing there. There couldn't be.

Bellamy's day is, _interesting,_ to say the least. When he awakes, he's annoyingly frustrated and he can't quite reach an answer that would explain why. Of course, it may be to do with the sense of dread that hangs over him every damn day, or the fear that whatever semblance of stability they have reached is going to be snatched from them at any moment, but those are normal feelings, nothing special. Maybe it's to do with the fact that he can't find his _bloody_ jumper when he gets out of bed, and instead has to wear his bulky hunting coat. Or possibly, it's to do with the looks that he is being given by the kids. Some wary, some appraising, but all odd.

They're treating him funny too. It's Octavia first. It's not that she's _hostile_ really, but there's something about the way she talks to him that makes her seem inaccessible to him for the first time in either of their lives. She may like ignoring his warnings, but she's never really been closed off. It worries him until he is faced with similar reactions from most of the rest of the camp. Caution from Monty, awe from Jasper, nervousness from some of the younger kids. He gets a bit of cheek from Miller, which isn't too new, though the subject of the teasing, Clarke, is. Maybe he's just being bone-headed, but he cannot for the life of him think what he might have done to provoke these reactions.

He is almost relieved when he has to deal with Finn and the boy is treating him with his usual amount of distain and derision. What surprises him is the fight that Finn suddenly has in him, declaring that the only way in which their party would be safe would be to move the entire camp to safety, up into the mountains or towards the sea, away from the grounders. Normally the kid is just surly and uncommunicative when his ideas are rejected, but when Bellamy tells him that it's not an option to be moving around he just lets rip.

"You're such a moron! You're going to get everyone here KILLED for some ego trip that you're on, and you're too fucking pig-headed to see it! We're not going to stand for-"

"Hey man, hey. Relax," Bellamy cuts him off when people look up from their chores to listen to the fight. Miller, loyal to the bone, makes like he is about to stride over to the two men, but Bellamy holds up his hand to signal that back up isn't required when dealing with Finn.

"Relax?" spits Finn, incredulous. "Not all of us have a way to _relax_ like you do."

Bellamy catches his arm as he spins and tries to stalk away.

"What the hell's gotten into you Collins?" he demands. "What are you talking about?" Bellamy grinds this last sentence out from between clenched teeth, hating having to ask Finn to clarify something.

"I'm talking about last night. Hell, EVERYONE'S talking about last night. You and Clarke. You fucked her didn't you?"

Bellamy pushes the younger boy away from him in disgust.

"It's none of your God damned business what Clarke and I do Finn. And you'll find that Clarke thinks the same thing. Stay out of it." And with that he strides away, signalling to Harper as he leaves the camp gate. She salutes lazily in return and he makes a note to change the guard schedule tomorrow. Harper is not built for it.

He parks himself on a fallen tree not far from the entrance and stays there for the rest of the day. He knows that people will worry if they think he's gone AWOL, and he'd be galled if they thought that something that Collins said had upset him. Though he wasn't upset. Angry that fucking Finn couldn't keep his thoughts to himself and might be spreading vicious rumours about Clarke, but not upset.

Walking back into the camp before the gates are shut for the night is almost embarrassing. He feels like everyone witnessed his flee from his argument with Finn. Well, everyone but Clarke, but he hasn't seen her all day anyway.

She sees him before he does her, storming up to him with a plate of food in her hand and shoving him back towards his tent hissing about what people have been saying, conveniently forgetting her vow not to let it bother her.

"Princess," Bellamy says, his tone coloured with warning, "if you want to stop people thinking that we are sleeping together then desperately pushing me into my tent isn't going to help." He didn't mean it as a joke, but if anything she just looks more furious and dumps the food into his hands as soon as they are both through the opening.

"What are we going to tell them Bellamy?" Clarke sounds desperate, and it pricks. He knows that she doesn't want people to think they are having sex but could she at least be a little tactful about it? He didn't think that he was that repulsive…

"Clarke, does this really matter? We need to talk about changing the guard rota, some of-"

"Yeah yeah, I was thinking the same, Harper's not cut out to be a guard. But we can talk about that later," she implores, dismissing the subject as though she hadn't just read his mind. "But we have to talk about this thing. Us. They," she gestures outside, "all think that we slept together!"

"Why does that bother you so much?" he asks. He's genuinely curious. Apart from Finn, he doesn't really care that people think he and Clarke are together.

"It could mess up everything we do! Do you really think that people will still listen to us, still take us seriously, when they're thinking that while we're arguing we're just going to fuck later and forgive each other? They'll think we're _weak._ " At that word she sounds genuinely fearful.

Bellamy inwardly flinches at her words, but tries to pacify her.

"Why don't we just ignore it for now?" He sees her about to interrupt so he places one finger on her lips. "Hush, and let me finish." She grumbles and he smiles.

"If we try to deny it now then people are going to think we are sleeping together all the more. If we ignore it and nothing changes then we're fine. If the kids do start acting out then we'll deal with it when we get there. You're worrying about something that hasn't even happened yet, something there is no guarantee is ever going to happen."

Her shoulders sag and she leans forward slightly, just enough for Bellamy to give her a quick hug. When they separate she flashes him a brief but genuine smile, and leaves, shoulders straight and with no shame in her eyes, making her way through the camp and back to her own bed.

It's then that he notices he is still holding the plate of food. He smiles. _She bought me dinner._

 **There is** ** _always_** **so much unnecessary** **drama between these two and I absolutely LOVE it! x**


	6. Chapter 6

( **Really wanna thank Snowdrop-143 for their review, getting any review is always great, but that one was super sweet and I'm so grateful you took the time to write it, thanks babe!)**

They keep muddling on. Winter approaches with every passing day, creating worry lines on the faces Bellamy sees. One of the younger kids almost loses a hand in a panther attack. There is always a lingering threat from the Grounders. He has to pretend that he doesn't notice Octavia sneaking out to see Lincoln.

Monty finds wild mushrooms that are edible, and easily reproduced in the soil around the camp. Clarke is training up a couple of the older kids, including Harper, in medicine. Raven manages to maintain contact with the Ark.

No one dies.

They find _books_.

Okay, so Bellamy knows that he shouldn't be as excited about finding books as he is that no one has died, but there isn't an awful lot to be happy about on the ground, so float him, he'll take excitement where he can get it.

The books had been stashed at the very bottom of a big woven hamper in one of the bunkers not too far from camp. It must have been a family hiding there, because the range of books was interesting to say the least. Some of them were the classical literature that we taught briefly on the Ark; Dickens, Tolstoy, the Brontes. Others were a little more interesting. The Cat in the Hat was now a particular favourite of his. There were several well-worn books sporting the name _Stephenie Meyer_ across the front, but their pages were mostly faded so they were used as reserve kindling for the fires when it had been raining. He took all the books back to camp though. They were kept in the dropship, which meant that Clarke's work space quickly became twinned with a library. She seemed to find it amusing, and that was all he could really ask for.

It became common practice for the two of them to spend their evenings together. All day they would work, either apart or together, always supporting and helping one another. Gone were the days of screaming at each other across the camp, their arrogances fading in favour of debates that took place in the dim light of the dropship. Bellamy would be settled with a book, and Clarke would be drawing, what he didn't know, for it was never in her herb book. She was good at putting distance between herself and her work when she knew she was tired, and she did the same for him.

Every night she would come and fetch him from whatever task he was involved in (usually cleaning up someone else's mess) and bought him to the dropship. Usually there was dinner waiting, and all of her medical equipment had been tidied away. He once asked her why she didn't just leave it out overnight, surely it'd be easier not to have to set it up every morning. Clarke had said that she was sick of looking at it, but he suspected it was more to do with the other kids messing around with her stuff. Once they'd eaten they would use the hour or so before retiring to relax. They might talk a little, but more often than not they would just sit together, each occupied with their own pastime. It was easy to be alone with Clarke. They were alone together.

It was during a time such as this when the first snow came. The two leaders were engrossed entirely in what they were doing, Clarke's tongue poking between her lips as she finished a particularly intricate drawing of Octavia with lilies woven into her hair, and Bellamy re-reading Le Morte D'Arthur. (Apparently knights and dragons were his favourites).

It was an unspoken rule that Clarke and Bellamy were not to be disturbed for anything less than a total emergency during this time and so when they heard screams and laughter coming from the doorway Bellamy actually growled.

"Bellamy Blake!" she exclaimed. She then cringed at her unapologetic mum voice. It just slipped out, she didn't mean to sound so scandalised.

"Princess! I'm 23! You can't scold me!" he replied, in the same shrill tone.

She mumbled something as she got up and walked towards the dropship door, but it sounded an awful lot like _the hell I can't._

It seemed that she was in a dramatic mood that evening, for when she saw what was causing all the excitement outside she gasped and clutched her hand to her chest in wonder. She was so caught up in the flurries of snowflakes that were being scattered from the heavens that she didn't hear Bellamy scrape his chair back and unceremoniously stomp over to where she stood.

"Oh." He sounded bewildered.

"Oh." She echoed him.

It really was beautiful. Jasper had thrown his head back and was catching snowflakes on his tongue, while Monty made big deliberate footsteps around him in the thin layer of white dusting the floor, marring its perfection.

Raven and Finn were lying in it giggling at each other, looking younger than Clarke had ever seen them. It lessened the animosity she had been feeling for Finn, and she found that she was a little bit glad that he and Raven were figuring it all out again.

Octavia was gathering great handfuls of the substance and throwing it high into the air again, showing anyone within a six foot radius of her. She looked free, freer than Clarke had ever seen her, worries dissipating for a while.

Miller was standing stoically by the now-closed gate, his beanie hat and shoulders gathering snow. Every so often he shook his head to dislodge it, but Clarke caught his smile when Monroe scooped some of it off his shoulder to pat into a ball.

Bellamy pushed her into it. He literally pushed her. One moment she had been standing with him admiring the happiness that the snow had bought them all, and the next, _whumph._ He'd planted his hands solidly into her back and actually heaved her out of the dropship. She spun in mid-air, and though the snow softened the impact, it did nothing for her pride as she found herself arse deep in freezing snow, looking into huge, watery brown eyes.

Hang on a second. Watery? Clarke scrutinised his face and then let out a _hmph_ of displeasure. Yeah, Bellamy was crying. Crying with _laughter._ Bastard.

Luckily for her it was then that Octavia (thank GOD for Octavia) decided to intervene.

"BELL!" She screamed his name at the top of her lungs, and then in a manoeuvre that could only be described as kamikaze managed to douse both the siblings in snow.

Clarke didn't know how Octavia had done it, but Bellamy now looked just as cold as she did, and she could barely breathe for laughing.

Octavia looked thrilled with herself, and ran away quickly before she could face any retaliation from her big brother. As she retreated, she threw a wink over her shoulder at Clarke and shouting:

"I got your back Clarke, he's way too confident for his own good!"

Bellamy, now dripping, seemed to come to his senses. Rather than looking furious, there was a light in his eyes that Clarke had never seen before, and it warmed her, even though she was still sitting in the snow. Ah yes. The snow.

She threw her hand up towards Bellamy, indicating that she wants to be helped up. To give him his due, he did bend over and clasp her wrist, but before he can tug her up, she yanked as hard as she can. If he hadn't been bending over, it probably wouldn't have worked, but as such he began to topple and then slammed into the snow next to her.

She doesn't have time to laugh, or even get away before he's rolled onto her, spitting snow in her face and burying her in it while she squeals, trying to wiggle away.

Eventually, the cold and exhaustion sets in and the two leaders halt their shenanigans, their laughter turning into soft sighs as it comes to an end.

Bellamy smiles down at Clarke, still pinned underneath him. They're both soaked to the skin, and her teeth are chattering, but God it was fun to just play in the snow. He looks into her eyes for a moment and an idea shoots through his mind. _Kiss her._ He dismisses it as soon as he thinks it. It's too cold. They're in public. She might not want to.

There are a thousand other reasons why kissing Clarke is a bad idea, but none of them are strong enough to stop him from wanting to.

But he doesn't of course. He's a coward. Instead he hauls himself off of her and pulls her to her feet, steadying her with hand on her waist until she gets her bearings.

Then he watches her until she makes her way to the entrance of her tent, turning and walking away just before she enters. It's why he misses Clarke take one more look at him before she goes to sleep, her fingers ghosting over her mouth in search of the memories of a kiss that never happened.

 **(Yeah, sorry to any Twilight fans but I just couldn't help myself, those books are shite)**

 **Also, I know this chapter is a little shorter than the last couple, but I thought it had come to quite a neat conclusion. You're more than welcome to argue with me in a review though... :D**


	7. Chapter 7

**Oh my God, I am the WORST**

Bellamy rocketed up and out of bed to the sound of screaming. It was still dark inside his tent, dawn hadn't yet broken. He scrambled up and darted around, desperately pulling on his clothing as he tried to shake his dream off. He couldn't remember an awful lot, just smooth skin, supple and willing as he drove into the faceless girl. Let's be honest, that in itself wasn't the reason he was trying to forget. It's that she didn't seem to be faceless any longer. Lately, Bellamy had dreamt of blonde curls sticking to their skin, icy blue eyes struggling to stay open and the maddening scent of mint and rain clinging to them. He growled and physically shook his head once more, trying with all his might to dislodge the image of Clarke laying before him, naked and totally sated.

He stormed out of the tent into the biting cold. The snow from last night hadn't stopped, and it had blanketed the entire camp in its glory.

He heard the scream again.

Bellamy whipped his head around, trying to find where the sound was coming from. It was constant now, and someone was sobbing alongside it.

Twirling on the spot he rushed over to a cluster of tents that were in the shadow of the dropship, placed there to try to give them some semblance of shelter from the icy winds that swept over the camp.

He ran through them, ripping open doorways to find the source of the noise.

When he found them it broke his heart.

"Get Clarke," he commanded one of the onlookers who had gathered around the tent to watch what was unfolding. "Now!"

He pushed his way through the crowd and saw one of the younger girls, Astra, pushing down on the chest of another delinquent, one who was lying prostate on the bed. She was the one screaming. It was unintelligible.

The youngest of their troop, Christie (she was _eleven_ ) was sobbing and clinging to Astra's waist, begging her to do something.

Simon was on the bed, totally still apart from the constant pumping of his chest from Astra, eyes glazed and mouth dotted with blood. Bellamy had no time to think, he stormed forward and ripped Astra away, she was too weak.

She gasped and he saw her tumble out of the corner of his eye, but he would have to apologise later. All he could think about was the boy on the cot in front of him, the boy without a heartbeat.

He slammed his fists onto the middle of Simon's sternum and began the same motions that Astra had been attempting just seconds earlier, but with far more force. He was probably breaking the child's ribs but that didn't matter, Clarke would be able to fix all of that later. She couldn't do that if he were dead.

A sudden murmuring outside had Bellamy's head turning, though he didn't give up on the boy, continuing to press his hands onto his unresponsive chest. He almost laughed in relief when he saw Clarke standing just behind him.

She wasn't looking at him though. Her eyes were trained on Simon, grief and sadness etched into them. She wasn't doing anything. _Why wasn't she DOING anything?_

"Do something!" he shouted, breathing heavily.

Clarke looked him in the eye and shook her head slowly, tears pouring down her face, leaving tracks of clean, pale skin where the salt water cleared away the grime.

Astra, having fallen silent, let out an ear-piercing wail, loud into the night and collapsed onto the floor of the tent, sobbing, with Christie.

Bellamy hadn't taken his eyes of Clarke. "You can DO something," he told her, "Help him! He's dying Clarke!"

"He's already dead Bellamy," she returned softly, reaching out to clasp his wrist in her soft hand. "He's gone."

He swore at her in disgust, turning away and continuing to pump Simon's torso, with a desperation that was making his arms ache. _No more death. Please God, no more._ They'd been doing so well.

It was the deafening silence that finally caused Bellamy to slowly stop pushing on the young boy's chest after many minutes. Simon was gone. His skin was so pale that it was almost translucent, the veins on his forehead and neck visible, even though his heart had ceased beating minutes before.

He stared at the body for a while longer, unseeing. Then he whipped around to face Clarke.

"You didn't do anything," he said, sounding almost calm. "YOU DIDN'T EVEN TRY." This time he sounds furious. And the look that he had in his eye, oh how she was sure that she'd never see that again. It was in that instant that he despised her again, she was lower than scum to him once more, and it made her heart shatter.

"Bellamy," implored of him, " _please._ "

"No," he told her, not able to meet her eyes. He twisted around and fled from the tent, throwing off Clarke's hand as she tried to capture his arm.

Clarke remained rooted to the spot, emotions flowing through her, coming and going like the tide.

Clarke tried to rid herself of the hatred that had been in Bellamy's eyes just before he left the scene by throwing herself into working. It was getting towards dawn when the body had finally been moved from the tent and into the dropship.

She stood over Simon, unsure of what she could do. She had seen him that morning, he was fine. Yet less than 24 hours later and he was dead, his body tiny and broken.

She'd not been able to get much out of Astra and Christie, but from what they had managed to tell her it seemed that Simon felt ill just before dinner and went to bed. The girls didn't realise that he was dead until it was too late, they thought he had just been sleeping.

Clarke wasn't really sure how to go about giving a diagnosis. Simon had felt ill, and was dead within hours. She didn't know what sort of illness could have that effect on a person.

Feeling all kinds of guilt and shame, she slowly undressed the body, examining the skin as she did so. There wasn't an awful lot else that she would be able to do, it's not as though they had a forensics kit, and it seemed a waste to try to investigate further. There was nothing on the body that she could see anyway, the back, torso and legs free from anything that might indicate what had killed the child.

It was only when Clarke began to redress the body ready to be buried that she saw the angry rash underneath his arms. It stretched over his underarm, and his armpits on both sides, and was almost purple in colour. She dropped his arm and backed away, scared. There might have been a lot of things that had caused a rash like that, it might have been a plant, or an allergic reaction, or any number of innocent things. But the colour and the place screamed at her, her mind repeating the same word over and over, terrifying her.

 _Meningitis._

She flung herself out of the dropship, stumbling towards the group of children and teenagers standing by the fire pit. She knew she couldn't contract meningitis from Simon, not now, and that she was more likely to get it from one of the others (if she hadn't already been infected) but she was so scared. How was she meant to treat this? They had no way of stopping this if it turned into a pandemic, and without vaccinations everyone would be in danger.

"EVERYONE INTO THEIR TENTS NOW!" she screamed, aware that she sounded hysterical, but not able to calm herself down. "THIS IS A QUARANTEEN, WE'RE ON LOCKDOWN. NO ONE LEAVES UNTIL I TELL THEM TO!"

As she watched the delinquents shuffle into their tents, their faces a mixture of confusion and fear she held herself upright, trying to be strong for them. She didn't know where Bellamy was, and God knows they needed at least one leader to have it together.

As if thinking his name had summoned him, Bellamy materialised by her side, looking more furious than she had ever seen him.

"What the fuck do you think you are doing?" he hissed in her face, grabbing her arm and yanking her towards the dropship. "We already lost one kid today, and now you're terrifying them. The hell has gotten into you?"

"Not so close!" she exclaimed, pulling her arm free and wrenching herself away from his face, hoping that distance would keep them safe. They approached the body in the dropship and Clarke lifted Simon's arm to show Bellamy the rash.

"Bell," she said, beginning to sob, "it's meningitis."

She collapsed in on herself, finally allowing herself to be weak now that Bellamy was around to absorb some of the weight of the situation. She kept waiting for words of comfort, or an arm around her shoulders, but it never came, and she felt her blood run colder than the weather had already made it.

"We don't all have your medical know-how Clarke, so when you're done with the pity party then I'm going to need you to explain to me what it is and how we can stop it," Bellamy said, his voice hard.

Her shock at his words stemmed the flow of tears, and she hiccoughed.

"It – it's umm, meningitis. I think." She stared at the peaceful looking boy, prone on her 'operating table.'

"You think? What you _think_ is not fucking good enough Clarke, not good enough. You have to KNOW," Bellamy stormed around to her and took her by the shoulders. Still somewhat expecting a hug she relaxed, only to find herself being shaken by Bellamy.

Which _infuriated_ her. How DARE he question her as a doctor?!

She wrenched herself away and grabbed Simon's hand, stretching his arm outwards toward her.

"Look at this," she hissed. "Look at him. Does this look like anything you've ever seen before?" she demanded, seething with anger. As though any of this could be considered her fault. There was no curing this. Not with the sort of _medicine_ she had access to, and she used that word in the loosest way possible.

"No. I haven't seen it before," replied Bellamy, just as pettily, "but then again, we didn't all have the _opportunities_ you did, Princess."

The venom in his words had them locked in a stand-off, neither willing to lose face.

She broke first.

"I don't know for _sure_ that it's meningitis, because we didn't have this on the Ark. I only ever saw it in old textbooks, but I just don't know what else it could be. I can't… I can't treat this Bellamy." She looked up into his eyes, desperately trying to convey her desperation, silently pleading with him to understand her situation, but he remained cold.

"If you can't help, then why the fuck are you still here?" he questioned. There was no emotion in his voice, and that was somehow worse than all the anger, the blame.

He swivelled on his heel and stalked from the dropship, heading for Miller and the rest of his rag-tag soldiers, apparently oblivious to Clarke crying his name over and over into the night.

 ** _Ah, the satisfaction of writing real drama. Sorry that it's been seven months x_**


End file.
